Grendon Underwood is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in west Buckinghamshire, England, near the border with Oxfordshire. The village sits between Woodham and Edgcott, near the Roman road

Akeman Street Akeman Street is a Roman road in southern England between the modern counties of Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire. It is approximately long and runs roughly east–west. Akeman Street linked Watling Street just north of Verulamium (near mode ...

(now part of the A41), and around north-west of Aylesbury. At the 2011 Census, the population of the civil parish was 1,625.

History

The

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

is derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

for 'green hill near a wood', though the 'Underwood' part of the name was only added in the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

period to differentiate the village from nearby Long Crendon and to signify the village's position close to the Bernwood Forest. The

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 records the village as ''Grennedone''. The manor of Grendon anciently belonged to the St Amand family. Almeric de St Amand of this family was one of the godfathers of

King Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal ...

, who was baptised in 1239. In 1642, Grendon Underwood lay on the forest tracks used by

gypsies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

and strolling players (travelling performers) and was visited more than once by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, who stayed at the house, formerly an inn, now known as Shakespeare House, currently (2012) a five star guest house and Grade II listed, part Elizabethan former coaching inn. Built in 1906, Grendon Underwood Junction was the point at Greatmoor, just east of Grendon Underwood village, at which the Alternative Route of the London Extension of the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

left the original main line. This was a little north of the former

Quainton Road railway station Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in under-developed countryside near Quainton, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd D ...

. The lines were closed to passenger trains in 1966 but subsequently used by freight trains. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Grendon Hall was Station 53a of the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(SOE). Sofie Magdalene Dahl, the mother of author Roald Dahl, moved with her daughters into a cottage in Grendon Underwood after they were bombed out of their home in

Bexley Bexley is an area of south-eastern Greater London, England and part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is sometimes known as Bexley Village or Old Bexley to differentiate the area from the wider borough. It is located east-southeast of Ch ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

during

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

. When Roald returned home from

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

duty in Greece and Palestine in the autumn of 1941, he at first had no idea where to find his family. Their eventual reunion is described by Dahl on the last page of his autobiography ''

Going Solo ''Going Solo'' is a book by Roald Dahl, first published by Jonathan Cape in London in 1986. It is a continuation of his autobiography describing his childhood, ''Boy'' and detailed his travel to Africa and exploits as a World War II pilot. Plo ...

''.

Current village

The Church of England parish church of Saint Leonard dates from the 12th or early 13th century. The village has a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

, "The Swan" specializing in

Thai cuisine Thai cuisine ( th, อาหารไทย, , ) is the national cuisine of Thailand. Thai cooking places emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge. Australian chef David Thompson, an expert on Thai ...

(correct at 2015). Grendon Underwood Combined School is a community school with about 280 pupils. The village has a single village shop. The Grendon Garage operated in the village until 2015, when it relocated to Tingewick, near Buckingham. The former premises were demolished for redevelopment. Grendon Underwood once bordered Bernwood Forest, the nearest remnants of which are now Grendon and Doddershall Woods, which are detached from the village itself by approx 500 metres. Both woods are now silvicultural and classified as ancient forest and are sites of special scientific interest ( SSSI's). This offers protected status to some of the endangered species of animals residing therein such as Bechstein's bats, and nightingales. There are also 35 species of butterflies such as

purple emperor ''Apatura iris'', the purple emperor, is a Palearctic butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. Description Adults have dark brown wings with white bands and spots, and a small orange ring on each of the hindwings. Males have a wingspan of , an ...

brown hairstreak The brown hairstreak (''Thecla betulae'') is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. The range includes most of the Palaearctic. Description The following description of this butterfly was written by Adalbert Seitz in 1909: ''Z. betulae'' L. B ...

black hairstreak The black hairstreak (''Satyrium pruni'') is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Distribution The butterfly is native to Europe, from Scandinavia to Ukraine, and is found as far east as Mongolia, Korea and Japan. It is considered by IUCN to b ...

, wood white, the silver washed fritillary,

high brown fritillary ''Fabriciana adippe'', the high brown fritillary, is a large and brightly colored butterfly of the family Nymphalidae, native to Europe and across the Palearctic to Japan. It is known for being Great Britain's most threatened butterfly and is li ...

marsh fritillary The marsh fritillary (''Euphydryas aurinia'') is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. Commonly distributed in the Palearctic region, the marsh fritillary's common name derives from one of its several habitats, marshland. The prolonged larval s ...

, pearl-bordered fritillary and small pearly-bordered fritillary.

Grendon prisons

Grendon Underwood has two

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

s, both are remotely located one mile away from the church and main village. The B-Category prison HMP Grendon is the UK's only

therapeutic community Therapeutic community is a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction. The approach was usually residential, with the clients and therapists living together, but increasingly residential ...

for the treatment of serious offenders. HMP Grendon opened in 1962 as an experimental prison for inmates with psychiatric antisocial personality disorder. The facility holds approx 238 cat B male prisoners (April 2012). HMP Spring Hill is a D-Category open prison with an operational capacity of 335(April 2013) Indeterminate Sentenced Prisoners (ISP's). The prison building, Springhill House was a former

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

Secret Service base during the

The Grendon Festival (GrendON)

This a Biennial event (every 2 years), with live music, comedians and a CAMRA supported real ale festival. The Grendon festival has a series of live tribute bands such as Kazabian, Noasis, Killerz, and Kings of Lyon, national and local bands such as Stoke Mandville Band, 48Krash. The festival, which takes place every other year, started out in 2006 with 300 people attending. In 2010 it attracted 2,000 and in 2012 organisers expected 4,000 attendees. However the event was postponed in May 2012 due to severe flooding and was successfully rescheduled to September 2012. The event was down-scaled for 2014 to include just 2 acts: "The Vinyls" and "Not the Rolling Stones", the event was expected to return to a mega-festival format in 2016, but was once again postponed.

References

External links

Village Website
{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire